


I've gone too far to turn it back

by TheOneChickThatMayOrMayNotBeInsane



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Dan's the superhero, I promise, M/M, See chapter notes for trigger warnings, So much angst, Tumblr Prompt, kinda break up, some of it's funny, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 14:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3939766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOneChickThatMayOrMayNotBeInsane/pseuds/TheOneChickThatMayOrMayNotBeInsane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt: Superhero AU: Phil gets kidnapped by the enemy and brainwashed, so when Dan comes to save him he is heartbroken. I moved away from some of the prompt but believe me there is heartbreak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from tumblr user icantfindmyipod: Superhero AU: Phil gets kidnapped by the enemy and brainwashed, so when Dan comes to save him he is heart broken.
> 
> I loved this idea and I told the person that I'd be uploading this sometime soon. I thought this was waay too long for tumblr tbh. Also the title is from The Academy Is..., the song is Rumoured Nights. I am not British (despite my best efforts what am I saying I'm a minor) and this is not Brit picked so any mistakes are my fault and my fault alone.

Dan Howell, half time superhero, full time boyfriend of Phil Lester, couldn't find said boyfriend anywhere. Normally he wouldn't be so worried, after all Phil got lost very easily, but he always called when he couldn't find his way back home. Dan hadn't heard back from him for two or three hours which was worrying, given the nature of Dan's work. The people who hated Dan were ruthless killers who wanted nothing more than to kill him and everyone he had ever met. This, of course, included Phil. 

Perhaps some explanation is needed as to why he was wanted dead by some people. Dan had 'special powers'. He didn't like to call them 'superpowers' that sounded unbearably pretentious. Those 'powers' were just controlling shadows. Given the fact that London was shadowy and crime-filled, Dan moved there and figured it was his civic duty to help protect the city that he lived in. This included both normal criminals and the nastier sort, the sort that had brains and sometimes even 'powers' to rival Dan's. As the city police didn't mind him sorting out some of the crime problems, he basically had free reign to hunt these people down and bring them to the police's idea of justice. 

Anyhow, enough about how awesome Dan’s powers were. Back to the Phil situation. Dan was, as previously stated, very worried about Phil. He’d just gone out to get some eggs from Tesco cause they didn’t have any and they wanted to make crepès. (Yes, Dan Howell, hero of London, wanted to make crepès with his boyfriend. Shut up.) He hadn’t come back and now Dan was flipping out. After several hours of him pacing and fretting, Dan remembered that he had a mobile phone and ‘special powers’. God, he could be stupid sometimes. 

As he dialled Phil's number, his breath hitched much the way it had when they first met. He was, and still is, enchanted with that boy. As Phil's phone rang and rang and rang, Dan's nerves frayed more and more. After a scarily long time, someone picked up the phone. 

"Hello?"

Dan's heart stopped. That wasn't Phil's voice. He didn't know the voice, which meant it could not be someone who wanted him dead. On the other hand, it could also be the minion of someone who wanted him dead. It could also him being forgetful and stressed out and just not recognising the voice.

"Erm, yeah, hi, I'm looking for Phil Lester, cause, you know, this is his phone and I'm kinda worried about him cause he hasn't come home yet...."

Dan mentally slapped himself in the face. Out of all the things he could have said, why that? Why purposely set himself up to be hurt? And the more important question, in Dan's mind at least, why put /Phil/ in the position to be hurt? 

"So /you're/ Dan Howell." 

Dan really didn't like the way that the voice (it sounded like a guy but he couldn't be sure) said 'you're'. It made the simple act of identification sound like a threat. 

"Yeah and I want to talk to Phil!"

He felt he had all rights to be pissed off. He just wanted to talk to Phil and this fucking guy wasn't letting him.

"Ah yes. Phil. I'm afraid that he is currently.../indisposed/ at the moment. However, you can certainly hear what he's up to." 

The guy must have taken away the phone from his ear and held it up because Dan heard Phil screaming. 

"That's why he couldn't come to the phone. Sorry for the inconvenience."

The phone clicked, the guy hung up and Dan saw red. Whoever was hurting Phil would be found and dealt with. When Dan thought 'dealt with' he didn't mean thrown in prison for life but dead. He didn't take people messing with Phil lightly. In fact, he'd once wrapped a man in shadows when they were riding the tube for passing a lewd comment about Phil. (The police weren't too happy about that. Something about 'public disturbances' and 'unnecessarily harming of the public'.) So, to hear about someone hurting Phil, that was inexcusable. This person would be dealt with and fuck the police (well, what Dan really wanted was for Phil to be home and fucking /him/ but that's beside the point). 

First step: find out who the person (people? Group?) are. Dan didn't recognised the guy on the phone's voice, so he guessed that he was lower down in someone else's organisation. Now that he thought phone guy was eliminated, he had to check to see if any of his enemies were out of jail, or if they had just not gone to jail in the first place. (He didn't watch the trials as they depressed him). He went over to his and Phil's bed and grabbed his laptop, which was running and already had Chrome open.

As he opened the spreadsheet that Phil had insisted on him making ("Dan! You need to keep track of the people you've helped arrest! Just in case, I promise you won't regret it."), he thought back to the start of their relationship, where Phil had been a uni student and Dan didn't know what his powers were or how to control them. They'd met when one of Dan's smoky tendrils had tripped Phil and he'd been enchanted by the boy's bright blue eyes. His heart stopped and his breath hitched. He knew, that without a doubt, this boy was the most beautiful human that he had ever laid eyes on (including Jennifer Lawrence, Evan Peters, and Nick Jonas). In a typical Dan fashion, he stuttered over his words and Phil, in a typical Phil fashion, did the same thing. They ended up exchanging phone numbers and going out for coffee almost everyday. Neither one was quite sure when Dan moved permanently into Phil's flat or when he'd finished mastering his powers (with a massive amount of help from Phil) but both were sure that they'd happened around the same time. 

As Dan looked over his finished spreadsheet, he realised that there were at least three people that could be the person that he was trying to find. One of them was titled as 'spicy tampon' in his spreadsheet but was whose real name was Luke Cutforth. Spicy Tampon was Dan's little joke as Cutforth was found with a tampon in his mouth (and a very solid alibi). Another option was the duo made up of Dean Dobbs and Jack Howard (Labeled in Dan's table as omfgjackanddean) which was so scary he didn't even want to consider it. Those two (Jack and Dean) were massively dangerous and not to be taken lightly. The last option was Ben Cook (in the table as Becoming YouTube, because that's how he broadcasted his terror, through YouTube) and he was a lot less likely to kill Phil. Cook tended to mentally hurt people, as opposed to messing with their bodies. Cutforth's MO was physical damage but Howard and Dobbs were wild cards and Dan had no idea how they would act. 

~well, time to make some phone calls!~, he thought sarcastically to himself. ~whoo!~

Second step: call every police officer Dan knows and see what they have to say about the men he's after. The first person he called was the chief of police and a close friend of his, PJ. Dan had known PJ for as long as he'd known Phil, in fact Phil and PJ went to uni together. Dan figured it was his duty to tell PJ what was going on with Phil (and he also wanted information). As Dan braced himself for this conversation (there were going to be tears), he thought about how disappointed PJ would be when Dan got rid of whoever did this to Phil. The last thing that Dan wanted to do was hurt PJ, but in this case, it was unavoidable. As he dialed PJ’s number, he just hoped that the same fate that had befallen Phil hadn’t befallen PJ. Finally, on the fifth ring, he picked up. 

“‘Lo?”

He sounded sleepy, like he’d just woken up. Knowing PJ, that was most likely the case, given that he worked at all hours and barely slept. 

“Hey, Peej, how are you?”

“Dan! You could have IDed yourself. I was kinda worried.”

~Yeah~ Dan thought, ~worried that your friendship with me would hurt you or Chris. Sorry Peej~

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s fine! Just don’t do it again and it'll be fine.”

“I’ll try not to. Peej, as much as I like talking to you-seriously I don’t think we spend enough time together-I didn’t call just to talk as friends”

“Oh shit. Dan, tell me what happened right now.”

“It’s Phil.”

“What?! Dan, talk!”

“PJ, he’s gone. He’s been gone for hours and he hasn’t called and when I tried his mobile, this /guy/ picked up and he held up the phone and I heard Phil screaming and PJ, I’m so scared and I don’t think I can save Phil and-” Dan broke off and started crying into the phone.

“Dan, Dan, DANIEL JAMES HOWELL, CALM DOWN!” 

PJ was shouting now, trying to calm the crying Dan. 

“Dan, what have you done to try and find him, besides call his phone?”

Dan hiccupped and pulled himself together. It had been the first time he’d cried since Phil had disappeared and it didn’t make him feel any better, just sort of...worn out. 

“I had a chart made of everyone who I ever pissed off by arresting them and then looked to see which ones were in jail and which weren’t and PJ, I narrowed them down to four people and I don’t like the idea of any of them having Phil.”

“Who are the four?”

Dan took a deep breath and told PJ, in a quivering voice; “Dean Dobbs and Jack Howard, Benjamin Cook, or Luke Cutforth.”

“Oh, shit.” 

Dan nodded, before remembering that he was on the phone with PJ and neither of them could see the other. 

"Yeah." He couldn't really say anything else, he was so choked up. 

"Dan, I'm coming over."

"Peej..." he broke off and started crying again. His whole life was Phil and now that Phil was gone, he had nothing left to live for. Phil was the one that taught him how to control his powers. Phil was the one who thought of helping the police fight crime. Phil was the one that had brought together Dan's broken and mangled life and fixed it. And now Phil was gone and Dan was nothing. 

"Dan, shit, mate. I'm coming over and bringing Chris." And with that, PJ hung up. 

He blinked and realised he'd just said everything aloud. ~well shit.~ he thought.~I managed to fuck up that relationship as well.~

He just sat on the floor, trying not to melt into a puddle of his own tears again, but it was to no avail. His already stained white carpet was now stained with tears as well as older, happier stains. Unbeknownst to Dan, the pain was slowly letting his shadows slip away. These weren't the strong tendrils that most people were familiar with, these shadows were liquid blackness that matched his pain. When he heard the doorbell ring what seemed like eons later, he chose to ignore it, thinking ~whoever they are, they don't care and they need to go~ and then the person rung the doorbell again and again until it became part of a rhythm of Dan thinking ~fuck them~ and the doorbell going on and on and on. 

Finally, he pushed himself up and, his shadows falling off him, he went to get the door. 

"Dan, you're worse then you sounded on the phone! Why didn't you let us in sooner?!"

Standing in his doorway were PJ and Chris, PJ's boyfriend and a good friend of Dan's. Dan shrugged and moved aside, almost automatically, to let them in. 

"Dan, mate, you're moving like a robot and not in the funny, cute way either." Chris had pulled him over so PJ (who was now making Dan some tea) wouldn't hear. "You need some comfort and you're not going to find that by crying."

Dan nodded, knowing that Chris was right. 

"I /do/ need help, and comfort, too," he agreed, speaking slowly while a plan formed in his mind. 

"There ya go mate! We can help you and we will. Here, come on," Chris smiled (not condescendingly) and led Dan into the lounge. As Chris was doing this, Dan was perfecting his plan. Chris /was/ right. He did need comfort and the best way for Dan to get comfort was to cuddle with Phil. But Phil wasn’t there and so to get comfort, Dan needed get him. 

When they reached the lounge (which was quite a short walk, as their flat was not too big), PJ was waiting for them with tea. 

“Bless you,” Chris said fondly, to his partner, and stood on his tiptoes to kiss him.

PJ smiled into the kiss and recuperated it in full. It hurt Dan's heart to watch them because he knew that if Phil had been there, they would have been doing the same thing. After they broke off, PJ handed him a cup of tea and sat down next to him with a cup of his own. Chris went into the kitchen and got his own cup as well. 

"Dan, I get that you're upset but you can't go find Phil on your own."

"No, Dan, mate, you can't. You need to trust the coppers and let them and Peej help you find him." For someone that always joked, Chris could become very serious when he needed to be. 

Dan didn't say anything, just nodded and disappeared into his headspace to plan. Without him knowing, his shadows gathered around him and formed a shadowy mass that hid his body from the outside world. Neither of his friend seemed to notice that he wasn't paying attention. 

"So, what'd you say to that?" 

Dan looked up. It seemed that PJ had just finished his monologue and was waiting for a response. 

"Um, yeah go for it."

"Good. We'll call in the cops tomorrow to file a missing persons report and then we can go look for him. Thanks for letting us in, we'll see you then!"

~what?~ Dan thought, completely confused. ~file a missing persons /tomorrow/? That's too late. I'm going out now~ 

As he watched PJ and Chris leave, he thought through his plan once again, just to make sure that there were no massive holes in it (the grief had torn a hole in his head to match the one in his heart) and now he couldn't think properly. 

The plan that he'd thought up involved pitting Ben Cook and Luke Cutforth against Jack Howard and Dean Dobbs and hoping for the best. It also was completely illegal and he hoped that Phil would be okay with it. He was pretty sure that the people who had Phil were working under Dobbs and Howard so he called them (not using his powers, using the phone book).

"Hello? Mr Cook?"

"Alright?"

"This is Dan Howell, and-"

"Fuck off, you wanker!"

"Wait, Mr Cook, I have an offer to make you."

"No. I'm not interested."

"Then why haven't you hung up the phone?"

"Fuck off, Howell."

"It'll help get rid of Dobbs and Howard."

A pause, then: "You have my attention."

"Here's the deal: they have Ph- my boyfriend and they're your rivals, right? So I figure, we pair up, get rid of them, and I keep you from going to jail."

"If you haven't noticed, I have no trouble keeping out of jail. You're /Dan Howell/, dumbass, of course I know that your boyfriend's Phil Lester."

Dan let out a short gasp when Cook said Phil's name. Throughout their conversation, something was bugging him about Cook's voice. When he said 'Phil Lester', it struck Dan. Ben Cook was the man that he'd talked to when he called Phil's number. 

"Fucking hell. Cook, you wanker! Deal's off, you lying dick!"

"Oh, it's nice to see that you finally realised who I am."

Dan's eyes widened as it seemed that Cook's voice wasn't coming from the phone but from behind him. He spun around and sure enough, there was Cook. There was something off about his appearance, though, and Dan couldn't quite put his finger on it. It wasn't the fact that Cook just bloody appeared in his and Phil's flat, that was /his/ ability, or that he wasn’t wearing a shirt (which was odd, but he chose not to dwell on it) but there was something else. Something very off about the whole thing and Dan just couldn't figure it out. Then he got it. Cook's shadow was longer than it should have been and where the shadow of his mass of crazed red hair should have been in the shadow's outline was a sleek head with tamed hair. 

"Hello, Dan. Miss me?" Phil Lester stepped out from behind Ben Cook and smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil, Ben, and Dean Dobbs have some sassy times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so Ben Cook heavy, you're not even ready. (Yes that rhymes, no I didn't mean for it to rhyme) Also this is what happened to Phil so there's that which is kinda important. I mean, it's not like, this chapter is /all/ Phil and Ben. Nope, that's just not possible in any way, shape, or form.

It all began when Dan wanted crepés. To be fair, once Dan suggested making crepés, Phil got hungry for-you guessed it-crepés. Then he looked in the fridge to make sure that they had adequate eggs for the two of them. As each of them could eat a batch on their own, they had to double the amount of everything. This meant eight eggs instead of four and 473 milliliters of flour instead of 236 millilitres of flour. They had the flour but they didn't have enough eggs so that's the only reason that he was out in the first place. 

As he was walking home from Tesco's with the eggs (they only had three, not even enough for one batch), a rag with a sweet smelling something pressed to his mouth. As he breathed it in (not on purpose but because he kinda had to breath), he watched the eggs fall in slow motion and smash on the pavement. *oh,* he thought to himself. *it's chloroform. Well fuck* Phil Lester might not swear that much but when he's in a life-threatening situation, his mouth gets worse than his boyfriend’s. The difference between the two is that Phil is usually able to stop himself from swearing out loud and Dan had no such self control. 

Anyway, Phil knew what chloroform smelt like because one time Dan had been brought, passed out, home and he was reeking of it. The police (led by PJ) told Phil what it was, and how to help him. Not that he could help himself now. After thinking *Dan's gonna be worried*, he passed out. 

When he awoke again, he was in what looked like a private club by the Thames. Standing in front of him was a short male figure with a shaggy side fringe. Phil vaguely recognised him as Dean Dobbs, with no powers but his and his boyfriend's wit, money, and influence. *but,* Phil thought. *those are the most powerful powers to have* Then he mentally winced because that sentence did /not/ come out well. 

"Hello, Phil. How are you?" Dobbs' voice was smooth and calm. Just like it had been at that fateful press conference, where Dan had announced that Howard (his boyfriend) and Dobbs had been terrorising the city. Dobbs had denied it and then pointed out the "good" he'd done for their city. Phil had to watch as Dan nearly lost it and strangled Dobbs (if you didn't know his body language well, you wouldn't be able to tell). 

And now the same man was standing in front of him. The same man that had wrecked chaos on London but no one realised it but Phil, PJ, Chris, and of course, Dan.

Phil tried to get up from where he was sitting but realised that his hands and feet were tied down to the chair that he was stirring in, which resembled an optometrist's chair. He shivered. On top of them being totally evil, now he was having not so nice flashbacks of various optometrist visits. 

"What the hell do you want?!"

"You to stop being rude for one."

Phil rolled his eyes. 

"And there we go again! There's no real reason for you to be this nasty."

"I think that kidnaping me and bringing me here without my permission is pretty good grounds for me being rude."

"Hmm, that's true. But we didn't even hurt you!"

"You suffocated me with chloroform!"

"What? No, we didn't! /That's/ rude!"

"No, I'm pretty sure that what you knocked me out with was chloroform."

Dobbs spun on his heel and yelled: "Jack, where are you?"

Phil watched as Jack Howard came into the room, looking rather annoyed. 

"What is it, Dean? I'm kinda busy right now, if you haven't noticed."

"Jack, did you use chloroform on Phil?"

"No. Wait, did that happen?!"

"Yeah, that's what he says."

"He could be lying."

"C'mon, this is /Phil Lester/ we're talking about. The being that is basically stardust and sweetness."

Phil thought, *stardust and sweetness? Really?* Out loud he said, "I'm not lying. I know what chloroform smells like."

"Yeah?" Howard asked. "How did /that/ happen?"

"Dan came home one day with the police. He was passed out and-" he broke off, thinking back to how scary that was. He thought Dan had died. 

"Oh." Howard sounded almost shocked. 

"I /told/ you." Dobbs, on the other hand, sounded more annoyed. 

"Well, if that's all, I'll be getting back to the massive pile of paperwork that /your/ boyfriend gave me!" The last part of that statement was directed at Phil. 

"Bye, then." Dobbs sounded wistful and and Phil's heart broke just a bit more, as he knew that he sounded the same way when Dan was gone.

“So, stardust and candy,” Dobbs had turned back to him and smiled. “How are you?”

“I’d rather be making crepès with Dan then be here with you,” was Phil’s rejoinder.

"You and Dan make /crepès/?"

"Have we successfully outcoupled you yet? Besides, crepès are tasty!"

"And here we see a resurgence of stardust and sweetness."

"Where does that even come from? I am neither of those things!"

Dobbs laughed. 

"Phil, when was the last time you looked in the mirror?"

Phil shrugged. Dobbs grabbed a mirror and held it up to his face. Phil looked in it and just saw himself. No stardust or sweetness. Just the same old Phil. He saw the parts of his face that he hated; the oh so northern nose, the Benedict Cumberbatchness of his cheekbones, and the colour of his eyes. 

"I don't see anything different."

"So you don't see the sparkliness that surrounds your soul?"

"No."

"Good. That way you won't be able to see when it's gone."

Phil blinked. It seemed like Dobbs had just been complimenting him and now he was saying that he was going to take away what he'd been complimenting. It was confusing. 

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Yeah, it's just confusing."

"What's confusing?"

"You seemed to be complimenting me and now I don't even know what you're implying."

"Oh, you'll see soon." 

Dobbs turned towards the doorway and another familiar face appeared. With bright, dyed, red hair, and a lip piercing, Benjamin Cook was a hard figure to forget. 

“As you know, Ben specialises in the brain. He’ll be in control of your /change/.”

Dobbs turned on his heel and walked out of the room. 

“Alright? Like Dean said, I’ll be in charge of you.” Cook’s voice was a typical English one, nothing extraordinary there. He was very smart, had strong opinions on just about everything, and also had superpowers (Phil /loved/ the term ‘superpowers’ and used it as often as he could). Cook could appear anywhere he liked but he was also not interested in seeing people fuck and never tried to enter flats or houses unless he knew the people were gone. (This meant he’d never tried to come into their place, because no one was ever entirely sure where both of them were at anyone time unless they had both been captured on screen, which happened more frequently than either of them would have liked.) 

Cook popped out of the room (literally popped, there was a soft sound) and swiftly popped back with blue gel that reminded Phil of stuff he'd seen in Firefly when River was at the Academy. (He'd enjoyed it, although it was no Buffy.)

"Here's what I'm going to do. I have this electro-gel that I'm going to put here-" he touched the side of Phil's head. "And here-" he touched the other side. "Your forehead." He tapped it. "And here." He tapped the back of his neck. "Before I figured the neck thing, I had to shave the back of the head, which both of us hated doing."

"Both of us?" Phil asked. As far as he knew, this had only happened once to him. 

"The subject and and myself both hated shaving their head, although there were different reasons for us hating it. I hated the hair everywhere and the subject hated having that one bald spot."

"Oh, okay."

This made sense to Phil. Even though he didn’t grow that much facial hair, he’d once had to shave his leg for a dare and his leg hair clogged up the razor. The hair on someone’s head would be a nightmare.

“Anyway, I’ll put the electro-gel on those places and then attach these things to your head.”

“Shouldn’t you know what they’re called?”

“I’m not the one that makes this stuff. I don’t care what it’s called, just that it works. So, I’m going to attach these things to your head. Then, I’ll send electric shocks through the wires coupled with shocks from my power reserve. You’ll be knocked out by then and I’ll give you a drug that takes away the parts of you that make you so sweet and caring about everyone and everything.”

*oh, so that’s what Dobbs meant,* Phil thought. Out loud he said; “Won’t that hurt you in the long run?”

Cook laughed. “See, that’s what I mean. Once I’m done with you, you won’t care about me. But nah, it won’t hurt cause my reserve power supply gets refilled constantly.”

The things that Cook came over with (also known as “those things”) had suction pads on them and led up to a headpiece that looked like it was directly out of Firefly. Cook covered his fingertips in the electro-gel and smeared a small amount of it where he specified before. 

“Now, I’m going to attach these things.”

He stuck them on top of the gel and smiled. 

"Prepare yourself, mate."

Phil shuddered. Cook telling Phil what he was going to do to him was scarier than it actually happening and him not knowing what was going on. Cook telling him what was going on might have been one of his mind games or it might have been Cook trying to reassure him. Phil wasn't too sure on which it was. 

Cook pulled off his shirt. Phil wondered *is he going to pull a move on me?* before quickly discarding that though because he remembered that Cook had a boyfriend that he was utterly disgusting with in public. Cook grabbed the blue gel and rubbed some on his heart then grabbed a suction cup that wasn't attached to the thing above Phil's head. He stuck it on the gel and got up to adjust the thing on top of Phil's head then sat back down. 

"Now I'm going to switch this," he said and tapped what looked like an ordinary light switch. "And send my power reserve surging through this." He tapped the wire attached to his chest. "After that's over, you'll be fine. Well, I say 'fine'. You'll be completely transformed!"

"It sounds like a bad advert. Like, ya know, 'Completely change who you are! Benjamin Cook's brainwashing service! It's free!'"

"I did make it sound like that, didn't l?" Cook laughed. 

Phil nodded. 

"Okay, this next step is where most of the pain comes in. Are you ready?"

Before waiting for Phil's reply, Cook flipped the light switch and grabbed the wire on his chest. A feeling of extreme pain throughout his whole body swept through him, making his back arch up and out of the chair. He was only aware of his screaming when his vocal chords started to hurt. Meanwhile, Cook had gotten a phone call on Phil's mobile and was answering it. Phil only got one side of the conversation but what he heard made his blood go cold and his heart ache more than the rest of his body. 

"So /you're/ Dan Howell." Cook said and looked at Phil, letting him know that Dan had called. "Ah yes. Phil. I'm afraid that he is currently.../indisposed/ at the moment. However, you can certainly hear what he's up to." 

*God,* Phil thought. *Why does this hurt so much? It's just my head it shouldn't hurt /this/ much* and screamed again and again.

"Thanks, Phil." Cook was smiling, obviously finding something funny in Phil's situation. "Your boyfriend is very concerned now."

Phil didn't hear him, because like Cook had said, he'd passed out. Electro-shocks tended to do that to a person. 

"Good, means I haven't fucked up yet." 

He removed the wires from his chest and Phil's and wiped his forehead with a wet wipe. He didn't bother to remove the electro gel from his own chest (or to put a shirt back on). He walked over to the table that Dobbs had set out for him and saw the two things that he needed for the final step; an air mask (taken from an airplane) and his favourite chemical to wipe the mind with. He'd experimented on countless people before alighting on this one, which could be used to target certain personality traits and wipe them away. As far as he knew, there was no way to reverse it. 

As Cook walked back to where Phil was lying, inert, he thought to how he would break Dan. His favoured way involved taking the 'new' Phil back to their flat and introducing him to Dan. It would break his heart. 

As Cook paced around the room, he felt his mobile buzz. He answered it. 

"Hello? Mr Cook?" He immediately recognised Dan Howell's voice and decided not to let him know that he was the guy that he'd spoken to on Phil's phone. 

"Alright?"

"This is Dan Howell, and-" Cook cut Dan off, pretending to be pissed. 

"Fuck off, you wanker!"

"Wait, Mr Cook, I have an offer to make you."

"No. I'm not interested."

"Then why haven't you hung up the phone?" 

"Fuck off, Howell." He was still keeping up with both plans- don't let him know and pretend to be mad. 

"It'll help get rid of Dobbs and Howard." Cook vaguely wondered if Dan really thought that this offer would make him help his mortal enemy. Best to keep up the illusion he figured. 

"You have my attention."

"Here's the deal: they have Ph- my boyfriend and they're your rivals, right? So I figure, we pair up, get rid of them, and I keep you from going to jail."

"If you haven't noticed, I have no trouble keeping out of jail. You're /Dan Howell/, dumbass, of course I know that your boyfriend's Phil Lester." Yeah cause he's right here next to me, Cook thought. He undid the ropes around Phil wrists and shook him awake as Dan took some time to figure something out. 

"Fucking hell. Cook, you wanker! Deal's off, you lying dick!" Ah, Cook thought. He's figured it out. 

"Oh, it's nice to see that you finally realised who I am." Cook had grabbed Phil's arm and appeared in their flat. Now it was all up to Phil on what would happen next. He prayed for the best. 

"Hello, Dan. Miss me?" Phil stepped out from behind him and smiled. It wasn't a normal Phil Lester smile, all sugar and sweetness. No, this smile was cold, calculated. It was scary and very unlike Phil Lester at all. 

Benjamin Cook smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't seen the perfection that is Firefly, go watch it (it's on Netflix, there's one season plus a movie that you can't stream). Also the things that Phil hates about himself, I love and am not hating on Phil Lester at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil is basically just a very sexy asshole. Like seriously, he's a dick. Trigger warnings for mentions of past attempts of suicide, extreme bullying, suicidal thoughts, and suicide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was going to be smut but nope I didn’t know how to write it. Well, some of it was going to be smut. Anyway, here’s this chapter...

Dan gasped. He'd seemed to be doing quite a lot of that recently. 

"Phil. Hi, how are you? Are you okay? Can I get you anything?"

"Dan, just fuck off. I don't care, I'm fine and I don't need you coddling me."

"Okay..."

Cook smiled to himself, something that didn't go unnoticed by Dan. 

"What are you smiling about? What did you do to Phil?!" Dan had gone into full on psycho mode. He got very possessive over Phil and /really/ didn't like the 'new' Phil. His shadows had gone into what he called 'Cecil Palmer mode' where they emerged like Cecil's and were primed and ready to attack. However, Phil put a very effective stop to this plan by tacking Dan and attaching their lips. 

Dan made a muffled 'mmfh' sound which soon subsided. Brainwashed or not, Phil still knew all of Dan's weak spots and how to make him keen in /just/ that way. 

"Not...fair..." he stuttered out, in between Phil's kisses. "I call not fair."

"And why's that, Danny?" Phil pulled off him, with a smirk. "Do you not feel comfortable with me doing /this/?" And, saying that, he dove back at Dan, whose shadows had gone away for the time being (he was rather distracted). Phil kissed his way from Dan's lips down to his neck and began nosing at his shirt while Dan made keening, happy noises. Dan heard, muffled, as from far away, Cook saying, "I'll just leave you to it, then." and disappeared. 

Phil grinned like a Cheshire Cat and murmured into Dan's ear; "We're all alone now. There's no one to protect you anymore."

"I'm ju-ust fine with that... Ohh Phil!"Dan trailed off as Phil had torn (literally, it was a thin shirt) off Dan's shirt and was trailing down his abdomen with kisses and his fingers. He reached the waistband of Dan's jeans and stopped. 

“I’m not so sure that this is a good idea…” He looked up at Dan and seemed so innocent, so vulnerable, that Dan couldn’t deny him anything (even though he was almost painfully hard at this point). 

“Phil, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. I just want to make sure that you’re okay. Being kidnapped sounds really scary.”

“Dan, don’t baby me. I am a perfectly capable adult with a uni degree, which is something /you/ don’t have, and I don’t need your sympathy or comfort!”

Dan moved back from Phil in shock. It was true, he didn’t have a uni degree, he’d dropped out, but Phil had been the one to /comfort/ him, not put him down for it. It was still a sore point for him, and one that his criticisers always brought up. 

"What, Dan? Scared of me? Don't be. I'm your sweet, loving boyfriend. Just like I always have been." Phil smiled and Dan felt chills creep up his spine. Phil /never/ acted like this. He never made fun of Dan, or belittled their relationship. Now he'd just done both in what basically amounted to the same breath. 

"Phil..." he trailed off, not sure how to address it. He might have been overreacting. That was a possibility, right? He might have been totally overreacting and Phil was fine and it was something like PTSD or he was just imaging it. "Oh, nevermind."

"No, Danny boy, I really want to hear what you have to say to me." Phil smirked down at Dan. They were both still on the floor but Phil had pushed himself up and was sitting, crosslegged, next to Dan. 

"No, Phil, it really doesn't matter."

"Dan, yes it matters. I'm supposed to be your boyfriend and that means that you should tell me everything."

*wait,* Dan though. *no it doesn't. And he knows that. What the fuck?*

"Phil, seriously, it doesn't matter." And with that, he pushed himself off the floor and got up to make two cups of tea. Phil followed him. 

"Well, Danny, I'll tell you what /I/ was thinking. I was thinking that it's silly to fight what the police call crime."

Dan spun around. "Did you really say that?"

"I did. I'm soo happy that it elicited a reaction from you. There will always be more so called criminals to fight, more battles to be waged. Why not just give it up?"

"Do you mean killing myself? If you remember, the shadows don't let me." It was true. In his early teens, tired of being branded a freak, a mutant, and always having government people show up at his house, Dan got a knife and tried to slit his wrists. He knew how (the memory still mocked him. Some dicks in courtyard at his secondary school saying 'why don't you just kill yourself? The world doesn't need another freak!' and 'remember, Danny, it's down the street, not across it!') His shadows wrenched it away from him and he never tried to kill himself again, as he was too scared of this /force/ inside him. One late night, he'd told Phil and Phil had comforted him and held him as he cried over it. 

This Phil, on the other hand, this mangled and twisted (because Dan had decided that he wasn't imaging it. Phil /had/ changed) version of his best friend/boyfriend was laughing about it. 

"That's right! I'd almost completely forgotten about that! What a riot!" He finished laughing and wiped his eyes. Dan just stood there, his heart shattering into a million pieces.

"No, no, Dan. What a waste of talent," Phil smiled, being cloying condescending. "I mean, let's go to the opposite side, you and me together! Let's work against the police, against the regime!"

"Phil, I can't do that! I have friends in the police force! I can't just give up on them!"

"Not even for me?" Phil strode towards Dan and glared down at him. Even for Dan, who'd seen most, if not all, of Phil's moods, it was terrifying. 

"Phil, you're the one that got me doing this! I don't get why you'd ask me to let it go. But now I've seen what changes it can bring to someone's life! I can't give that up. I'm sorry. I love you..." He trailed off, not trying to get Phil's sympathy. Quite the opposite as he was trying to hold back tears.

"Fine. I'm so glad you expressed your /true/ feelings, Daniel. I'm sorry you won't be part of the future." Phil walked, calmly, over to the door and walked outside, not even slamming the door. Dan collapsed in a pile of tears and misery. The worst part was that Phil didn't even seem angry, he just seemed...disappointed. He wailed and turned against the doorframe that lead into the kitchen and clawed into it, both with his shadows and his fingernails. "Oh please, dear god," he murmured under his breath. "Please just let me die right now that's all I want if you have any mercy whatsoever please let me die." 

In another part of London, Phil was wandering around. He was looking for Ben Cook so he could tell him that his plan to get Dan to go to their side wasn't working. Thus so far he was unsuccessful in finding Ben but very successful in getting free stuff. 'Getting free stuff' did not imply that there were lots of people giving away free things (this was London, after all) but instead, he was amazing at stealing things from people, be it by pickpocketing them or by just taking things from shops, he was pretty damn good at it. He'd always known that he had this talent, but he'd never thought to use it before now. 

As he picked his way through London, he thought back to when he first met Dan, the mindwashing warping things a bit. He'd been very impressed with the shadows and more impressed that he'd found another geeky, awkward boy who shared the same interests as him. Then he fell in love, he didn't know how as he was just hanging around. *that was a mistake* he thought, sad that so much of his life he considered wasted with a boy he no longer loved. His feet, by some sort of strange muscle memory, brought him to PJ and Chris's house. He knocked on the door, still not fully realising what he was doing until he did it. Chris answered. 

"Bloody hell, mate, what happened?"

Phil looked up. "Oh, shite. I didn't mean to come here."

"Too late for that, you're coming in." And with that statement, Chris grabbed his arm and pulled him inside their house. 

"PJ," he yelled. "Look who the cat dragged in! Well, I say the cat, we don't have a cat, I mean myself. So I guess what I meant to say, look who I dragged in."

PJ, ever the prepared one, came into the room. "Hey Phil," he said, with a smile. "How are you? We were at your house earlier and Dan was having a bit of a cry on the floor. Is everything okay now?"

"PJ, I'm fine, just let me be, for fuck's sake!"

Both Chris and PJ looked shocked. Phil Lester /never/ swore, not ever. He /never/ got snappish at people when they asked how he was or how Dan was. 

"Blimey, Phil," Chris spoke up from behind him. "We just wanted to know! I'd've thought that you'd be reassuring him now, not at our place, yelling at us."

"Chris, I don't know why I chose to spend my life with him. I don't know how I fell in love with that needy, gibbering wreck of a human being. God, he's such a failure to the human race, I just don't understand it." As before, Phil's words were calm and smooth. He didn't seem angry at his own failure, just confused and sad at his (former) love. 

"That's it. We might have history together, Philip Michael Lester, but I will /not/ have you speak about your boyfriend, the one that you cannot have a conversation without gushing about him, IN MY HOUSEHOLD! IS THAT CLEAR?!" PJ, who, despite being a cop, was normally very soft spoken. However, when the situation called for it he could also shout at the top of his lungs when needed. Now was one of those times. He marched over to Phil and grabbed one of his arms. Chris, without having to be told, grabbed the other. 

Phil, even though he was over a meter tall, was rather weak. He was no match for two cops, even though they were both slightly shorter than him. They managed to drag him out to their car and into it. They shoved him into the back seat, PJ took the wheel and Chris slid in beside Phil, to keep an eye on him. 

Meanwhile, Dan was still sobbing his heart out, just in a totally different location. He was at the Westminster Bridge, teetering on the edge. He hoped, this time around, that his shadows would let him go. He was tired of living, tired of existing in a world without Phil. It had hurt like hell for him to lose Phil the first time, now, only five or six hours later, he’d lost him in a completely different way, in a way that he’d never thought he’d lose him. The bitter, horrid moment dissolved when he felt his mobile phone buzz. He’d brought the thing with him as a force of habit, not even realising it until now. He accepted the call and brought the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey Dan, where are you?

“Um, hey, Chris, what’s up?”

“Dan Howell, where are you?”

“Why does it matter? ~more like, why does he care so much?~

“Cause me and PJ and Phil are at your place and you’re not there and now we’re worried.”

“Don’t be. When you say ‘we’re worried’, I’m going to assume that you’re not including Phil in that?”

A pause, then; “I think he’s worried, but very deeply down in his subconscious where he’s still, ya know, /Phil/.”

“Yeah, Chris, thanks for reminding me that my boyfriend is no longer my boyfriend.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. To answer your previous question, I’m at Westminster Bridge.”

“We’re coming. Hold on, Dan, okay?”

Chris hung up and Dan smiled, a smile that would have read, if anyone was around, this is going to be over soon.

He waited until he saw PJ’s bright red car approaching fast and hurled himself over the side. As his body dropped though the air, his only thought was *I hope Phil cries at the funeral*


	4. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is written entirely in lowercase but should not be skipped

-the aftermath that dan howell’s death left on this city was a horrible one-

-dan howell’s death was a tragic one and he will be missed-

phil stands at dan’s grave. he still hadn’t forgiven himself for dan’s death. everyone, especially, chris and pj, said it wasn’t his fault, that he was brainwashed, that he wasn’t responsible for it. phil feels like he is. he feels like he should be arrested along with cook and howard and dobbs. once dan had jumped and phil saw his body, everything that cook had done to his brain had broken and phil broke down in tears. chris was the one who stood by him at first, not pj. he isn’t surprised. pj’s brain has to wait a long time to forgive someone. it hasn’t been long enough yet. after dan fell, phil was the one to call 999. they asked him to tell them what happened. he told them, through tears and wailing, they were able to piece together what happened and they arrested cook and dobbs and howard. now there was just phil left.

*just phil* he thinks. *no more sarcastic geeky boy. no more waking up to shadows wrapped around me in the middle of the night. no more people yelling at me for eating all the cereal* As he walks away from the grave, one thought enters his mind. a picture of dan, smiling, happy. in phil’s mind he’s laughing about something that phil said. it’s a picture from a party that they both attended and it was the last time they saw each other dressed formally. phil smiles, one last time for dan and calls pj.

“hey, peej. i’m ready for that therapist that you told me i should see. “


End file.
